Just where is Appalachia?

This question was sparked by an article that appeared recently in the Morehead News, a bi-weekly newspaper serving Morehead and Rowan County, Kentucky. The article stated that Elizabethtown, KY, had been declared eligible for funding from The Appalachian Regional Commission, a federal agency established by law in 1965 to counteract the effects of high unemployment in Appalachian counties. The terrain around Elizabethtown isn't exactly what one would think of as mountains. Nor has its economy historically been characteristic of Appalachia. But such have been political decisions, what we used to call pork barrel politics. Anything more I say will turn this into a rant, and that's not on my agenda today.

From the beginning, the area included within the jurisdiction of the Appalachian Regional Commission ranged beyond what anyone would likely consider to be mountainous to include pockets of poverty in contiguous states. Northeast Mississippi is the example that jumps out at the casual observer. Perhaps less obvious is all that was left out of the Appalachian Regional Commission mandate.

Wikicommons - Public Domain

A map of the Appalachian Mountains clearly shows that they range on up through New York and New England into Canada. Even the Appalachian Trail runs some 2,200 miles from Springer Mountain, Georgia, to Mt. Katahdin, Maine. So technically, Appalachia extends all the way from north Alabama to Canada. In fact, these mountains are so old they date back to Pangea, when all of the continents were clustered together. This mountain range not only passes through Canada, but picks up again in the British Isles, passing through Ireland and Scotland and continuing into Scandinavia. A tell-tale mineral, serpentine, follows the complete chain to verify that it was once connected.

So when I think of Appalachia, I'm thinking of the second map, not the first. To me, Appalachia means mountains, or at least true hill country, not a social, economic, or political construct. And the Appalachia I know best lies in five states, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina.

This is my Appalachia,

and this isn't (although I love the Bluegrass, too).

Welcome to Historic Rugby

Like most people, my wife and I found Rugby strictly by accident. We stumbled onto it in 1971 while out cruising the mountain roads in our then MGB. It's in a very rural part of east Tennessee, as evidenced by the hay bales in the field behind the welcome sign. We began coming here regularly a decade later after tiring of the crowds in and around the Smoky Mountains. Here we found peace, quiet, and friendly folks, and a large National Park under development with (then) almost no one in it. It became our preferred place to hike.

Our mountains aren't quite as high as the Smokies/Blue Ridge, but we still love them. So when we were able, we moved here. Unfortunately, we don't have oil beneath our land like some of our neighbors have. In this photo you can see an oil well pump jack and separator tanks. One of the local farmers told me that when he bought his land the seller had offered it without the mineral rights. Those would be $5,000 extra. He decided to go ahead and buy the mineral rights. He said it was the best investment he ever made. The oil they later found paid off the farm and sent all of his children to college.

This final shot has nothing to do with this post, except I liked the patch of butterfly weed that was growing near the welcome sign.

Y'all come! It's peaceful here!